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In French fashion smoking is still a major prop and models regularly appear smoking, even on the front cover of magazines, looking frighteningly chic and alluring, a juxtaposition that the British press is trying hard to avoid, and which would not be acceptable in the USA. In fact about 38% of French people smoke as opposed to 25% of English people, and smoking has somehow always been seen as a particularly French trait.

It is only from January 1st 2008 that France has become subject to a ban on smoking in cafes, nightclubs and restaurants.

As far as French cafes are concerned, it seems that since the ban smokers are now all out on the terraces, where proprietors can create smoking areas, providing the structures are neither permanent nor completely enclosed. This is reminiscent of the fact that, as soon as the smoking ban came in in England, a lot of pubs created a little “pavement cafe” on the street outside, where patrons could sit and puff away, which seemed to work quite well in streets that had been pedestrianized, where there is space for the tables. In France, there are even smoking tables set outside within cellophane walls. In both France and the UK, life has been made a bit easier for the smokers now reduced to puffing outdoors by the provision of outdoor heaters, so that they don’t completely freeze to death in the wintertime.

In terms of France’s capital, apparently eighty per cent of Parisians approve of the ban, and people are taking it quite well, with no signs of smokers being inclined to flout the law.

So it looks as though the smoking ban may well hasten some changes in French cultural attitudes towards smoking. Let’s hope so!

Filed under: Smoking bans